There's Something Witty Written Here

For example, if someone is able to walk outside without a jacket in the cold to get the mail, everyone would easily understand that they'd still need a jacket if they were outside for a prolonged period of time. If someone is able to hold their breath underwater for a few seconds, everyone would easily understand that they'd still need an oxygen tank in order to stay underwater indefinitely.

Dracula book: an evil count who only sees the world as a resource to be drained for his own pleasure is stopped by the group of people who deeply care for each other

Dracula in media: a tragic romantic hero, main love interest of one of the protagonists who must be liberated from her dull little life

Frankenstein book: any human has capacity for evil when completely abandoned and shunned by the world and the people who brought him into it

Frankenstein in media: don't play God because it's against nature's laws

Jekyll and Hyde book: repression and only caring about external appearances can cause your worst impulses to indulge themselves in dangerous ways if ignored for too long

This part. This is the part I’m talking about

This is not a woman falling to pieces because her father won’t let her marry a man she just met.

This is a woman born to a life she has very little say in. She has never had a genuine friend (besides a tiger). She is facing a marriage to a man she doesn’t know and doesn’t like but duty (and the law) demands it. So she took a risk, ran away, ran to a world she doesn’t know or understand and when she landed in trouble (serious, serious trouble) a stranger came to her aid. She finally (finally!) made a real connection with someone but they didn’t get much time together before the guards showed up and she had to reveal who she was.

This moment when she’s crying her heart out? It comes after she’s been told that the first person she ever connected with, the first person to be genuinely interested in her for who she is and not what she is, the first real friend she has ever made, was executed… because of her.

Crying is normal. Even if it's over something trivial. We all face a lot of struggles in their lives, whether we acknowledge it or not. Something minor might end up breaking the camel's back.

Anyway, here's one of my favorite scenes in Beauty and the Beast:

Really, none of the classic princesses deserve the misinterpretation.

Cinderella?

Again, this is not after someone told her “yOu CaN’t MaRrY a MaN yOu JuSt MeT”—this is after she went to great lengths to get ready for the ball, adhering to the intentionally difficult (meant to be impossible) stipulations set by her abusive step-mother for her to be allowed to attend (when really she was invited and had as much right as the others to attend). She made that dress (I can’t recall off the top of my head if the classic animated version was also her mother’s old dress she restyled or not but still, she put in a ton of work on top of all the extra house work) and what did her step-family do? They tore to shreds while she was wearing it. Of course she’s lost hope: it’s the final straw after years and years of doggedly remaining optimistic despite constant harsh treatment.

Let’s go to another favourite: Mulan.

Mulan’s just had the worst day.

She tried her hardest to live up to her family’s and her society’s expectations and vision of a perfect bride but she failed. Not only did it go wrong, but she was publicly humiliated by the Matchmaker—by extension, humiliating her family.

Granted, her family has been kind and sympathetic about the whole thing. Her father even goes to encourage her, assuring her of his unconditional love for her and his confidence that she’ll get it right next time.

She’s just beginning to smile when the drums pound and news of war reaches their village. Her father—her beloved father who’s already a veteran and lives with a disability—is expected as the only male in their family to suit up and head out in the morning.

Mulan can’t help. Nothing she says will be listened to and she can’t take his place (until, of course, she thinks of a way to do so which this moment of crying it out in the rain leads to—score one for having a good cry and clearing your head).

There’s of course more. Take any princess’ dramatic crying momentTM and review the context and I’ll bet you’ll see it’s never as trivial as some have framed it. And, yes, like prev pointed out, it’s this awful thing of people believing boys can’t cry and girls can but then they can never be taken seriously.

- she's not being told "no" to marrying a man she just met. Marriage to Philip as she met him in the woods was not a conversation. She just wanted to meet up with him later and was told "you must never see that young man again"

- she's told this because she IS supposed to be married to a prince (who is Philip but she doesn't know this yet) and she actually does NOT want to be married to a man she just met!

Don’t overlook paternity leave because it’s a hugely important feminist issue

Celebrating fatherhood with official paternity leave policies challenges traditional gender roles and empowers parents in the workplace. It’s one of those rare issues where men’s rights activists and feminists can find common ground with a mutually beneficial cause. It even has an impact on LGBTQ equality.

- It’s important for LGBT+ parents who don’t fit the cis-hetero mold of one mother and one father.

- It’s an important feminist issue for reducing the second shift: when only one parent gets adequate parental leave, it’s only natural for a pattern to develop that the only parent who got adequate parental leave takes on the lion’s share of childcare. However, if both parents get adequate parental leave, then it’s more likely for a pattern to develop of sharing childcare duties. This is obviously massively important for reducing how much women’s careers are affected by having children.

- If the mother has post-partum health issues (anything from recovering from a C-section or other physical traumas, to post-partum depression and/or anxiety) it’s incredibly unfair to expect her partner to just go back to work immediately instead of allowing her partner to stay home and help with childcare duties. When someone is recovering from having a baby, it can be really important for their partner to stay home to help care for them and the baby.

However, one important point I haven’t seen brought up in why equal paid parental is so important for social equality is how important it is for reducing hiring discrimination.

By that I mean, when a country has *only* guaranteed maternity leave, but either no paternity leave (or really short paternity leave of a few weeks like the U.K. has), this is only going to raise the risk of hiring discrimination against women.

So if a company is choosing between two candidates for a position: one is a young woman and the other is a young man, if the country this company is in has a maternity leave policy of several months or more, but paternity leave is either just a few weeks (or completely non-existent), the company will look at the woman as riskier and less reliable to hire than the man.

So equal paid parental leave leads to more equality in the job market, because it means companies are less likely to see women as riskier and less reliable to hire. If everyone, not just women, has the same length of parental leave, everyone runs the same risk of needing to go on leave for the same amount of time.

I seriously cannot believe that I haven’t come across this tutorial before! This tutorial by ElenaLeetah is on How to Make Lightweight Wings, and the end result is absolutely incredible! 

This seamless trim technique is a method I’ve been using for years to add custom trim to my costumes without any top-stitching at all. Similar in a way to bias tape, but with many key differences in implementation and results. No one taught me this technique, but now I’m teaching it to you! Please read through all the instructions below before asking any further questions, and happy trim-making! C: